Harvesting Ashwood Minnesota 2037 (10 page)

His nod indicated he’d heard about Phoebe’s night devils. “I heard Phoebe’s getting help. Anything you need from the dietary angle?”

“We have a therapist working with her, and Magda has made a few nutrition suggestions.” How I wished David was here to talk over last night’s sleepwalking episode. “I haven’t seen that food has any impact.”

“What about this Smithson boy?”

The change of subject came unexpectedly, like the last swallow of coffee that had turned cold in your cup. “Until Phoebe mentioned him last night I was under the impression that maybe four Ashwood people knew about Clarissa Smithson’s visit.”

“How long have you lived on estates, Annie? Nothin’ stays quiet longer than a few minutes.”

“Well, Clarissa Smithson isn’t the first person to suggest that some young boy is the child I carried as a surrogate.” I looked at his face for surprise, wasn’t disappointed. “But she is the first person with all the right facts.”

Magda entered the kitchen, hair curling out from under her brimmed hat, sun-protection clothing softly covering her muscular body. From her calm appearance, I assumed the day had started without problems.

“This is like a return to the good old days.” She gave Terrell a hug. “If you promise you won’t leave for a long time, I’ll give you one of these every day.” He shook his head and laughed.

“And just like the good old days, I need to get to my office,” I grabbed a breakfast sandwich and left them to begin my early morning routine of reviewing market data and government reports.

One of David’s DOE assistants sat outside the office building entrance. DOE personnel worked from seven in the morning through late afternoon unless they were preparing for travel with David. Jega, a tall woman whose broad shoulders suggested her role as one of my husband’s bodyguards, volunteered nothing about why she stood near the iris scanner at this hour.

“Good morning, Jega. You’re here early.” I paused at the scanner. A small stepladder from the kitchen stood in the building’s inside foyer for children’s use of the DOE’s security system. “Are you heading to Paraguay as well?”

“You have a visitor in your office, General Manager Hartford.” She held out a small ink pad and I remembered everyone on the estate requiring access to this building being fingerprinted during the siege of Ashwood in my first days.

“This must be a rather special visitor to put the building into this mode?” Beyond the quiet hall, the sunrise pushed across fields and orchards. Some central sense of security, not defined by scanners and government agencies, shifted. “You have my prints on file.”

“Please, General Manager Hartford. Protocol.” Jega extended the small pad while taking my sandwich. One of our hands quivered as I pressed my thumb down. “Thank you.”

I checked my thumb for the ink I knew wouldn’t be there, took the sandwich back, then stood aside as she activated the office door. For all her adherence to DOE regulations, Jega always wished me a pleasant day, and I missed her solemn voice offering that simple greeting.

My office door stood open, someone with higher clearance having overridden its lock. I straightened my shoulders. Milan arose from a visitor chair, a stranger doing the same next to him.

“Anne, come in,” my adviser said. His plain, middle-aged face looked old, thinning hair barely visible across his skull. He wore a dark summer suit and I wondered what time he and this second man must have awakened to dress so formally for travel out to the estates region.

“What is it? Has something happened to David?” Strange how my brain sent the words out into the room while my mind rationalized that what wasn’t said out loud couldn’t be true. I extended a hand to guide me to my desk, to the chair David built for me at Christmas two years, maybe three years, ago.

“Let me close the door,” Milan murmured while tucking a hand around my elbow, maybe holding me upright. He directed me away from my desk, toward the stranger. “Anne, this is Grand Executive Director Lars Peterson representing the Department of Energy. He flew in overnight to talk with us about a situation in Paraguay.”

Somehow we all moved to the cherry conference table. Somehow a glass of water appeared in front of me. The sun climbed higher in the sky, lights fading in the outbuildings. An ordinary day at Ashwood.

“I’m sorry to be here under these circumstances, Mrs. Regan.” A name never used in our lives after our summer wedding ceremony. Protocol dictated that Hartford remained my legal name, and neither of us cared about such formalities. We were merely David and Anne, husband and wife, dad and mom, lovers.

“I’ve knew your husband and his first wife when they were students at MIT. He’s a brilliant scientist and good human being. I’ve heard much about you one time when he and I traveled together. And about your children.”

I shook my head, impatient with the social niceties when news about David waited behind the words. “What’s happened to David?”

Milan took over from the DOE bureaucrat. “Truth is, Anne, we don’t really know. You’re going to hear on the news this morning that the United States has become significantly involved in a military conflict in the confluence of the borders of Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina.” Because Milan spoke only of what needed to be said, his voice held my attention.

“A group of American personnel, including David, were caught in an ambush at the Asunción airport late last night. That’s all we know.”

“Who is holding them?”

“That’s part of the problem.” Peterson rolled his left fingers as if a pen should be held between his thumb and index finger. I tried not to watch that hand as he spoke. “We don’t have all the players sorted out. Bolivia and Brazil are both suspect, but it’s no secret Paraguay has been home to terrorists for decades. We just don’t know.”

“Let me understand. You rushed my husband, one of this country’s most essential scientists, into an unstable and politically dangerous situation. He travels with a bodyguard into the cities to buy birthday presents for our kids, and you couldn’t protect him getting off an airplane?” Pain fueled anger. My David, a DOE chip embedded near his shoulder in the same way we identified our cattle, missing. My husband, who was in the middle of managing a large project for the Chinese government, sent to a craphole like Paraguay. “This all makes no sense. No sense, Mr. Peterson.”

No matter how much this man cared to be kind, his words were meaningless. He would travel back to his wife and family, celebrate a child’s birthday, take a walk after dinner. The worst part of this day was over for Peterson. Your loved one has been in a fatal accident, your mother has terminal cancer, your home has been foreclosed. A dozen bad-news deliverers have walked through my life, all decent people charged with a lousy responsibility.

“What’s being done?” The question came out demanding as I pushed to understand both the situation and the reason for David’s involvement. “There must be some time line from the people who pulled this off.”

“As I said, no one has claimed responsibility for the ambush.” Peterson sat back.

“So what are we supposed to do?”

“Take the day, Anne,” Milan suggested. “Spend it with your family. Then go back to your regular routine. Your family and Ashwood need you to stay strong.”

How could they understand that my strength began intertwining with David when he gave me the key to an old South Dakota house as promise of a future when we were through with government service? That my regular routine meant waking with David, making decisions with my husband, protecting the world we built together.

“This is all you know?”

Peterson shook his head, his lips pressed together, leading me to wonder what words he’d held back.

“What happens now?”

“The DOE will maintain this office into the future so you have no fear of financial instability regardless of the outcome of this situation.” Peterson stopped, perhaps hearing the massive insensitivity of his bureaucratic speak. Scientists tell us the body develops pain channels that remain active long after tissue heals. A decade after losing my last relative, one strong channel flooded. I looked to Milan and saw sympathy in the set of his mouth and the seriousness of his eyes.

My old confidant moved the water glass toward me. “Have a drink, Anne. It’s too early for anything stronger. I did bring light tranquilizers if that would help.”

My hand sprang from the chair, not to grab for drugs but to clamp over my mouth and a primal moan. I stopped their path, swallowed, pushed out words. “I thought you were just showing up to talk about Andrew Smithson.”

“There is also news about Andrew.” He placed a small medicine container in my hand, closed his fingers around mine. “You were one of the surrogates impregnated with selected sperm.” He paused. Too numb to protest confirmation of this long ago wrong, I merely looked at our hands. Milan continued, speaking to me in the quiet tone of a trusted friend. “Your instincts were right when you were pregnant—Andrew is your son. The DNA tests matched.”

“Then he belongs here,” I said. And I wondered if David didn’t return, if I would look at my firstborn child and remember this day. “Don’t make me deal with his aunt. I don’t want any lasting entanglements with that woman.”

“You would think different if you got to know her, Anne,” Milan said. “In the future you and I and Clarissa Smithson will sit down together.” He demanded eye contact, and I let him see the threat of tears in mine. “I’ll work through the details of establishing your legal status as Andrew’s mother. His guardianship will transfer to me.” He made a note.

I didn’t know if he moved us toward talking about guardianship intentionally, or if the conversation now slid on its own to that delicate ground. Under Bureau of Human Capital Management protocol, upon David’s disappearance, Phoebe and Noah moved under Milan’s legal guardianship.

“We have to talk about the children of David and Tia.” He opened with gentleness. “Nothing needs to change in their day-to-day life, and I will assign a temporary waiver for you to do all the things you and David currently manage as parents. We’ll monitor what happens and make decisions after more is known about David’s situation.” Giving my hand an unexpected squeeze before pulling his away, he continued. “Let’s assume he’ll be back here in good time and we don’t have to discuss this further.”

Peterson cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to rush us along.” He frowned. “DOE has placed this building in lockdown status until David returns. Staff will continue to work here, the lab will remain open. Analyst Jega’s provided us with a list of non-DOE individuals who regularly move in and out of your office, and we will set up limited access for them. Tomorrow, we’ll install a partial barrier to the area beyond your office and coffee counter to secure David’s work.”

A wall, even temporary, in the space where David and I spent much of our working day suggested a permanence I wasn’t willing to accept. I took a breath. “What that says to Ashwood’s people feels rather alarming.”

Milan slipped into his strange undefined role between the DOE and the Bureau of Human Capital Management to block Peterson’s plan. We moved to talking about anticipated media coverage, how I would receive private updates, what the media would cover, and circulating a written statement to our staff.

I looked at my office clock and noticed it was six-fifteen. When I raised my eyes to the window, the estate’s normal morning activities continued with the drive needed to grow food, raise livestock, feed people. In the near distance Lao walked with a day laborer, a kindly man from Lakeville who worked at Ashwood to provide a high-quality education for his daughter in our school. A man who frequently stopped to talk with David about sports.

“What do I tell our children?” The question cut through Peterson’s placing a DOE security folder in front of me. “And his mother? Sarah lost a brother in Afghanistan twenty years ago. What do I tell Sarah?”

“If you’d like us to stay an hour or so, I’m willing to talk with whomever you choose as a representative of the DOE. We want Ashwood’s people to understand there is no reason to be worried about their own security or continued operation of the estate.” How could he understand that David’s role at Ashwood had nothing to do with the daily business operations, that my husband gave all his work effort to the DOE? The people of Ashwood would miss the essence of my husband, the man who knew their names and their kids’ plans, the farm kid who could clear brush when needed. Together David and I built an atmosphere at Ashwood estate, and that’s what people would miss.

Their transport left the estate through the DOE small drive before the residence workers brushed their teeth. Except for Jega at the entrance, I stood alone in the office building. David’s locked door, always an affront when he traveled, now felt threatening. Today I would be with my family to tell them the news of David’s disappearance and Andrew’s arrival. Tomorrow I’d focus on bringing my husband back.

Chapter Eleven

Knock, knock.” Paul pushed my office door open. “Need a friend?” One wide eyebrow, turned white by age and living under bright sun, raised into a questioning line above eyes like those of his son. Under gentle words the hint of a tremor implied that he’d seen the government’s silver transport depart.

“Please.” I stood by the windows as if solutions for today’s problems were hidden in leaves and fields just beyond its glass. As if David might jog up the drive covered with sweat and a layer of road dust and stop in my office on his way to clean up for breakfast. “You saw the transport?”